Carl Sagan was a very astute , clever man . It`s not just America where things are declining . Our hard won freedoms are being eroded without us even noticing . Big Brother is alive and well !
He hit it on the head! This is where we are headed. Over the next four years, the America we knew will probably disappear, to be replaced by something we do not recognize. We will wake up one day, and wonder what happened. But at least half of us will know what happened. The First Felon got elected.
Watched the Jerry Springer story. Exploitive reality television that only teaches people how to be vicious to one another. Followed by Dr Phil, the doctor who gets "clients" to sign non disclosures because the creep knows he's harming people. Same with Jordan Peterson who has no ethics at all.
That’s why this platform is so important. We cannot allow intellectual laziness to take over. Critical thinking skills need to be in every classroom. Not the 10 commandments.
Wow! We are here and I am ready for a revolution. There’s no nice way to get our power back at this point. The entire country is ignoring constitutional law and allowing this criminal insurrectionist to take office again. He’s above the law for some reason I don’t understand.
I work in a used book store. I am so disturbed the numbers of donated books about crystals, health care with essentially magic, tremendous numbers of religious books (essentially another type of magic), etc.
We still get good stuff....but....worrying. Or maybe, ppl are keeping their good bks?
Carl Sagan and Octavia Butler had their prophetic fingers on the pulse long before anyone else. The decline started in the 80s, and the warning signs were there in the 90s. America is the frog in the pot, and the water is boiling now.
The steady ascent of the upper crust achieved high gear in the Reagan administration. The shining city on a hill has become a swamp in a shit hole country.
Seems like the days of brilliant honest men are gone and replaced with greed and subservience to the richest scum bags. Unless this oligarchy is stopped this is the only foreseeable future.
Thank you! My late husband was a huge admirer of Dr. Sagan. Read every book and took his warnings to heart. Wish I’d kept the books as it appears many of his warnings were prophetic.
in 1981, Reagan announced that the US was going to convert from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. I was a teenager, but even I knew what that meant. We wouldn't make anything. We'd just buy and sell and trade money around. Our economy would just be pretend.
A big takeaway from this 30 year old passage is the seeds for this phenom were planted LONG before social media even existed. It stands to reason that many if not all of the perils of social media were learned by the developers watching what the traditional media did.
I'm afraid I grew up too close to Boston to do that XD. Y'all are my favorite rivals though, I didn't like the Habs semi-recent slump seasons because it cheapened the rivalry and now I'm hoping the B's can remain competitive enough to make it interesting now that the Habs are improving.
In some cases it's just like speaking to the feds. I had a buddy of mine that was in the FBI before his untimely death in 2001 and he use to feed me raw data from journalist.
I remember how shocked I was on watching the news in the USA while away working. I thought my country -UK- did not pay enough attention to the rest of the world but when I heard the announcement “around the world in 80seconds” I realised that the USA had a fine way of showing its disinterest.
“…a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Sagan nailed that one.
Why don’t we ever listen?
Carter put solar panels on the WH; Reagan tore them down.
T denigrated the vax his own team developed; Biden had to deploy it.
And too many more instances to even think of.
I was asked by a professor once, "How do you teach people when they don't want to learn and they only know one thing?" Many Americans haven't left their home state and a lot of them are afraid to learn beyond their bubble.
That book changed my life. While politics weren't talked about growing up, I was in a conservative house in a rural conservative small town. I read that book a few years after HS and it changed my perspective on pretty much everything. I honestly believe I may have been a magat if not for Carl Sagan
Ok Nostradamus Sagan. These words ring so true today. I am guilty of this consumption of short form content over long form and have lost some of my ability to think vertically and horizontally at the same time.
Me and Karl tho alike. He correct. I have a 23 yr old son and 17. They say every kid is so stupid now it's almost unbelievable. They cannot focus more than 2 min on anything. Leads to inability to critically think or learn complex things. They told me this and said they quit SM because they noticed.
I'm going to read this book now because of this post. Thanks for sparking my curiosity. The pure magnitude of what's going on and the constant barrage of hindsight and misstep's feels erie. Community in numbers will be everything right now. Sorry to get so daunting 😅 thank you again have a good day
Propaganda can impact even the smartest of people. It's not about who can withstand the propaganda machine. It's about who has access to the truth. The truth is generally very expensive.
Comments
Sums this all up nicely
He inspired my love of science.
I have huge love for this amazing man
We still get good stuff....but....worrying. Or maybe, ppl are keeping their good bks?
America (the frog) is cooked…?
Electing the felon after a failed coup d’etat, seems like we are.
Put a fork in us, we’re fucked.
BTW, I was tempted to reply with:
TL/dr
— until I realized that a number of people would not get the sarcasm.
My community had a long power outage and people were mad at the leadership.
She responded with a 140 character tweet, that was when I realized OMG, this ain't good for the future.
But yeah, the Habs are confused.
Sagan nailed that one.
Why don’t we ever listen?
Carter put solar panels on the WH; Reagan tore them down.
T denigrated the vax his own team developed; Biden had to deploy it.
And too many more instances to even think of.
Thank you for the extract.
Dump Trump et al
Destroying America like no other- Impeach - Arrest
Rise up & call
202-224-3121
💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙
Then sample it and drop it into one of Will Long's ambient dub techno grooves.
It got here quickly.
mbm
"There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path." - Carl Sagan
But instead of listening to his wise counsel... America went for the Republican Religious Far Right.
The rest is the history of decline.